This one simple practice that I call “Eyeballs” can make your afternoons easier and add powerful connection to anytime you reunite with your child. It only takes a few seconds and very little effort, but I know it will make a huge difference in your home.

You’ll Learn:

• What the Eyeballs tool is and how to use it (it’s gonna change your life!)
• Why connection doesn’t have to be complicated
• My favorite phrase for reuniting with my kids

I love this so much because your child wants to be seen by you. They desperately want to feel loved, accepted, and safe. And they get this from you when you simply take a moment to acknowledge them and say hello.

--------------------------------------------------

Moments of Reunion Matter

A moment of reunion can happen anytime you’ve been apart from your child. Maybe it’s first thing in the morning, when they get home from school, or after a sporting event or play date. 

When you are truly present in moments of reunion, it sets up the rest of your time together in a way that feels connected and calming. 

It feels good to be greeted warmly. Think about when you walk up to a hostess in a restaurant or check in for an appointment. How much nicer is it when they make eye contact, smile, and welcome you? It makes you feel lighter, more compliant, and you probably smile back. 

This is the kind of moment you’re trying to create with your kid. 

Especially at the end of the school day, kids are really tired. They’re waiting for that moment when they can relax and decompress. It’s time for them to take a deep exhale, and they want you to be a part of it. 

How To Do Eyeballs

Eyeballs is all about connection. 

I call this strategy Eyeballs because I think it’s funny 😆. But it’s also more than just eye contact. It’s looking into your kid’s eyes and looking past the surface, a little bit deeper. 

In fact, one of the biggest reasons I love looking into my kids’ eyes is because it makes me remember that I like them. I remember who they really are at their core and all the things that are great about them.

Here’s how to do it:

Pause what you’re doing. Even if you’re talking to another mom at school pickup, say, “Hey, I’m going to greet my kid real quick.” If you’re folding laundry or doing other chores when your child comes through the door, put it down. 

Look your child in the eyes and actually look at them. Notice who they are. If you have little kids, squat down to eye level. This can be harder if you have to go through a carpool lane (which often feels so hectic), but it only takes a second to turn around and look at your child while they’re buckling their seat belt. 

Greet them with a smile. Say something like, “Hi, I missed you,” “I’ve been thinking about you,” “I’m so glad you’re here,” or “I can’t wait to hear about your day.”

Wait to get into transactional conversation like homework, water bottles, afternoon activity plans, etc. until after you’ve done this Eyeball reunion. 

Why It Works

If you show up in the school carpool line and you're still on the phone and you are distracted and you're stressed out about dinner, it’s really difficult for you kid. No judgment - we’ve all been there!

Kids need a chance to reset their nervous system after school and connect back to home life. They need a little bit of a transition. If your child doesn’t get that reset and is dysregulated, you’re going to see more misbehavior, complaining, arguing, sibling fights, etc.

But when you do that little bit of connection with your kid, they tend to not need to get attention from you through misbehavior or hitting their brother or fighting with their sister or complaining about everything that happened at school today.

A lot of times, if you do Eyeballs, your whole afternoon is set up in a much more regulated way. 

When you make it a habit and do it often enough, you’ll create a loving, peaceful, connected environment, and your kids will follow that. It becomes the way your family greets each other.

I hope you’ll try Eyeballs this week, Mama. Try it next time you see your kid and see what happens! Let your child know, “Hey, I see you, and I’m glad you’re here.”

Previous Episodes:

• Episode 190 - Make Mornings Better with the Gentle Handoff
• Episode 87 - The 3 Rs of Emotional Regulation

Free Resources:

Get your copy of the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet!

In this free guide you’ll discover:

✨ A simple tool to stop yelling once you’ve started (This one thing will get you calm.)

✨ 40 things to do instead of yelling. (You only need to pick one!)

✨ Exactly why you yell. (And how to stop yourself from starting.)

✨A script to say to your kids when you yell. (So they don't follow you around!)

Download the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet here

Connect With Darlynn: 

• Book a complimentary session with Darlynn
• Learn about the different parenting programs at www.calmmamacoaching.com
• Follow me on Instagram @darlynnchildress for daily tips 
• Rate and review the podcast on Itunes

Welcome back to Become a Calm Mama. I'm your host. I'm Darlin Childress.

I'm a life and parenting coach. And I just. Before I even get into today,

I just want to say thank you for listening. I have been doing this podcast.

I think this is episode 191.

And it has been such a delight for me

to create these content every week

to teach with you, to sit with you, to share stories with you.

And it means a lot that you listen. And I love when I get

feedback and you let me know that the podcast impacts you. And I

just wanna say thank you so much for, you know, just being

along for the ride and learning alongside me and with me and

letting me be your coach. So just wanted to say that before we start.

All right, so last week, I talked about the gentle handoff, which is this

concept that I have taught for years and years, and I introduced

for a second the idea of eyeballs. And. And now I want to

talk specifically about eyeballs, what I mean by it, and

get into this idea of reunion and

connection and making your

afternoons smoother as well as your bedtimes

smoother. Isn't that nice to think about? So thinking about

last week, I talked about gentle handoff, and I said, one of the things that

we want to do is when we work through

our mornings, our goal is to

deliver the most emotionally regulated human

we can to that school classroom, to that,

you know, preschool classroom or whatever it is that we're doing wherever we're going, even

if it's soccer practice, even if it's dance, even if it's tutoring, even if it's

taekwondo, even if it's a doctor's appointment, right? We kind of

want to have this moment that your

child is able to separate from

you and move into the thing that's required of them. They've got

to do the thinking, they've got to do good listening. They've got to be with

their peers, right? We want to deliver an

emotionally regulated person, and that means being

emotionally regulated ourselves, staying calm,

choosing our timing wisely, not disciplining

on the drive to school, you know, not criticizing things

like that so that we can help our kids be emotionally regulated.

Now, I talked a little bit about eyeballs in that

episode, and one of the moments where I share that you want

to do eyeballs, which is essentially just making eye contact

with your child. So I call it eyeballs because

it's funny to me. And it's this moment where

you look at your kid's eyeballs like it's not just

eye contact. There's something a little bit deeper than to me about

eyeballs where I'm like, really looking, like

past the surface into like a

deeper hello. I sometimes do it with my

spouse too, but I love with my kids to

really kind of like, look and then look a little bit deeper, I think.

You know what I mean? Or just try it sometime. Like, look at them and

then actually look at them. Like, look at their eyeballs and

notice who they are. Now, why I love eyeballs so

much is because first off, it is

very great for your kid to feel seen

by you. They want desperately

to feel love and accepted and

safe. That is their primary need.

Besides play, they also need to play, play, play, play, play. But they need

to feel safe and they need to feel loved and accepted.

Now, love and acceptance kind of sometimes

don't go hand in hand, right? We love our kid, but it's hard

sometimes to accept them as they are. All their quirks or

their neurodivergence or their attitudes or their

behaviors or whatever it is. However they show up, it can be

hard for us to kind of truly accept them. But that's what

they're craving, right? We all deeply want those

three things from our parents. I love you, I'm proud of you, and you're going

to be okay, right? So I love you, I accept you, and you're

safe. So when we look at our children

in their eyes and we take a minute to acknowledge

them and say hello, especially

during moments of reunion. So I especially

like to practice eyeballs at times where

we have been separated from our kids and we're back in reunion.

So primarily that is in the mornings and

after school. So if you want to have a

better morning and you want to have a better afternoon,

eyeballs is the way to go. Now, we all get told

all the time, special time, time alone, dedicated time you need to spend

time with your kids feels like so much pressure. We don't always

have 30 minutes or special dates and da da, da to go do with these

people, right? We're already doing so much for them. We're like, I also have to

do that. And the

reason why it's recommended that you spend quality time with your children

is so they have this feeling that they get from

eyeballs. So they have this feeling of being seen and loved

and accepted and safe. And you can do it. It's almost like

a short circuit towards that. Without spending a bunch of money at Color Me

Mine or buying a special toy at Walmart or Target

or wherever it's like, you don't have or getting a, you know, cake

pop from Starbucks. You don't have to do that. In order to get

the connection that your children need, you can

practice being present with them

at moments of reunion, and that will set up

the rest of the time in a way that feels

connected and calming. When we

are dysregulated, right, we go through the three

R's of regulation, I.e. rhythm, reward,

and relationship. When we have rhythm,

like moving our body in a way that is soothing, we

regulate. When we have a little bit of reward, a little bit of dopamine,

like a little bit of checkbox. Even if you're little and you get your socks

and shoes on, that feels really good, especially if it's acknowledged by

someone. So that kind of little reward,

relationship. When we have connection with somebody who's

regulated and we feel safe and seen by them,

we end up calming our nervous system. So think about those

mornings when you first greet your children. How

often. And I do not want you to feel judged, Mama, because I

only teach this because I know you want to connect

with your kids. And you're also really busy and overwhelmed, and you don't know,

like, really how to add this stuff into your life. So do not judge yourself

for being a distracted, overwhelmed mom.

I am offering to you a tool, a

concept that when you are able to practice it,

it will make things a little bit easier and you'll

remember to do it. The more you do it, the more you remember to do

it. So what is it? It's just being present and

taking a second and looking at your child and saying, hi,

I missed you. Welcome to the day. Welcome

to the kitchen. Welcome to, you know, the

morning, Right? Almost like you're

a hostess at a restaurant. I don't know. I don't want to make it too

cheesy, but it's like, what do you feel when you walk into

a place and they're like, hi, you're here for your appointment.

Great. What's your name? And, like, people are nice and they greet you

and they, like, make eye contact and they smile at you, you just feel a

little bit happier, right? When somebody greets you in a loving

way, in a kind way, a respectful way, it

just makes you feel a little bit lighter and a little bit more compliant. When

someone smiles at you, you tend to smile back, right? So thinking about your

children and thinking about how the mornings go, a lot of times we

don't make eye contact with our kids. When they wake up, we're busy. We're

like, looking at our phone. A lot of us being honest, we are

getting the baby up. We are, you know, brushing our own teeth. We're

just, like, in our own head. It's also morning, we're sleepy.

And it can be a missed opportunity to

actually set everybody up for emotional regulation.

So taking a minute to do eyeballs in the morning is really helpful,

and it really is just pausing, being present in

the moment, looking at their face, looking at their eyes, and saying, hi,

I'm so happy to see you. Good morning.

And smiling and being like, did you want to

get your pajamas on first or do you want to brush your. I mean, get

your clothes on first? Or do you want to brush your teeth first? And you

can start right into getting them ready. You don't have to make

a big, long production of it. This does not require 10 minutes. I'm not

saying play with them. I'm saying 25 seconds

of a hello. I think we can all

find half of a minute to say hello to our children,

right? And I promise. And I taught this to

a woman in my community who hosted this live event a couple weeks ago,

and she was like, oh, my God. Eyeballs is changing my life.

Eyeballs is making a huge difference. It takes very little effort

from me. And yet the results and,

like, the benefits just keep out playing themselves

like it's outlasting that little effort. The benefit is so

big. So eyeballs is, like, really, really

helpful. So do it in the morning and then after school.

It's also really important to reunion when you do that

reunion, to make eye contact and say,

hi, I missed you. I've been thinking about you,

and I really am so curious about your day.

So notice I'm not immediately asking about their day. I am

talking about the emotion between us, not the practical things.

Do you have homework? Did you turn in your paper? Did you bring your water

bottle? Do you have your jacket? You know, did you tell your teacher that you're

going to be absent tomorrow? Like, all those little

transactional conversations that we tend to have with our kids,

those are still important. I'm not saying you're not going to do those. I'm

suggesting that first we do an eyeball

reunion. You say, hi, I missed you.

I've been thinking about you, and I'm so curious

how your day went. I can't wait to hear about it.

Now, ideally, this happens not in a carpool

line. I know carpool lines are really handy, and there's

not a lot of parking near schools, and it can be a Real pain in

the ass and all of that. So if you have to do a carpal line,

fine. But under 8 or under 9 years old,

kids really do have trouble catching up

to themselves in space and time. The

world moves faster than their brain and body

moves. So they're all of a sudden in a car and they're being

whipped away from their school. It can be a little jarring

for them. And so it is helpful for there to

be a transition where there is a little bit of

walking, you know, from the

greeting, the reunion gate, and the eyeball time. And I love

with little kids to actually get down on your. Not get down on your knees,

but, like, squat down at their eye level and just take

a minute to say hi. And I love saying I missed

you. Because kids wonder if you miss them. They

wonder that they miss you, they miss home, they miss their

life. And just saying, hey, I missed you.

I'm so glad you're. I'm so glad you're here. Like, let's go. Yay.

I hope you had a great day. I can't wait to hear about it. So

curious. And if you can see, if you can hear

in my voice, I am smiling. Now, I've

noticed throughout all these years of raising kids

that at the schoolyard, if you do get out of the

car and you walk in, or if you're in the parking

line and another mom has walked in, or she's coming from

volunteering and she's walking to her car or whatever, we miss

talking to adults so much and that this is our chance

to, like, see our friends, right? And we want to chat, especially

there's gossip and there's like, if you're on the PTA or the pfa, there's, like,

stuff to talk about. So there's a lot of, like,

good things that we get from that time. And

I don't want to take that away from you. It's okay to just turn to

your friend and be like, hey, I'm going to greet my kid real quick.

Give me a second. So often we say to our kids, don't be

rude. Don't interrupt. I'm talking. Can't you see I'm talking? And we get

annoyed and angry with our kids instead of pausing

our conversation and meeting them where they are

emotionally and what they need at that time.

And when we do that, they're able to then get that need met

and stay regulated and wait to go to the car or

whatever. Now, of course, it's always hard. They're really tired. They want

to get in the car. They're hot, they're done, right? So they don't want to

wait for your big fat conversation with your friend about the juicy new

teacher that is going to get fired or whatever's going on,

Which I know, I love the dirt too, and the tea, as they say. But

your child really needs

us to prioritize them at certain points of the day, like right

before they get dropped off and right when they get picked up. Just because

they are coming down from a lot of.

They're either gearing up, armoring up to go on their day

or they are kind of decompressing. Being in

the car after school is a time of decompression. And a lot

of times I call it bra off, right? Like, kids kind of take that bra

off. They like, like how you feel when you take your bra off is what

I mean. That feeling of like, I'm done, finally, right? We can

release. We don't have to perform anymore. That's the feeling that

your children have when they finally get back to you after school.

Whether you're walking or in the car, whatever it is, they're like, ah.

And that's the time when we're like wanting to chit chat or start to go

right in on the facts and like, you know, all the things that are on

our mind, we want to dump that on them and get them to like, you

know, answer questions and things like that. And really, it

is a time of a deep exhale for everybody.

And your children want you to be part of that exhale for them.

And making that eye contact, making those eyeballs. Now, if

you aren't able to walk in, which I understand, it's okay if you can't. It's

all good. You're busy, you can't get. There's no parking. Whenever your school doesn't let

you. I mean, there's so many rules. After Covid, it was like you couldn't do

that at all. You had to do a carpal line.

So what I recommend is, I know it feels like,

you know, we gotta get going because everyone's like yelling at you to move.

I hear everybody's needing you to move, but you can just

turn around and, and look at the kid in the car seat

or kid buckling their seatbelt and just being like, hey,

I'm so glad to see you. I'm so

curious about your day. I can't wait to hear about it.

And just smile and look and make eyeballs, right? Contact with

their eyes, looking at them for that beat

Exhaling a little bit like, all right, we can talk about it all. If you

want to talk about it now, we can talk about it when you get home.

It's all good. You can. You want some music? You want quiet? What do you

guys want? Okay, let's go. Now. When you do that little bit of

connection with your kids, they tend to not need to

get attention from you or get that connection through

misbehavior or hitting their brother or fighting with their sister

or complaining about everybody. That happened at school today.

A lot of times, if you do eyeballs, your whole

afternoon is set up in a lot more regulated way.

And it might take a little bit of practice for you to remember

to do it, to do it consistently and often

enough that your kids can kind of predict that, like, okay, this is how we

greet each other. This is how we make eye contact.

This is what our family car environment

is. It's loving, it's respectful, it's

peaceful. If you have an intention

in your space to create a

peaceful, loving, connected space, your kids will follow

that. If you show up and you're still on the phone

and you are distracted and you're listening to a podcast and

you're not paying attention to them and you're, like, stressed out about dinner,

and you're like, they get in the car and you start rattling all the things

that are going on for you. That is going

to be difficult for. For your kids to then reset

their nervous system after school and connect back to,

like, home life. They need a little bit of a transition.

And that's what eyeballs really is for, is like, you

are in the present moment with them in

reunion. So I really want you to do

eyeballs as much as you can, and I'd love to hear about it and I'd

love for you to tell me how it's going. And if you have any questions,

see. So you can reach out to me on Instagram. It's Arlynn Childress.

There's links, I'm sure, in show notes or wherever you're listening to this

podcast, or you can also book a complimentary consultation with

me. I'd love to hear from you and learn what's going on with your family.

And we can talk about what it might work to work one on one with

each other. I'd love that, too. So this

week, just really kind of thinking about reunions

and making that eye contact, those eyeballs, those

looking at your children. Oh, I meant to say this. The other reason why I

love eyeballs is because when I look at my children

and I look in their eyes. I remember that I

like them. I remember all the things

that are great about them. When I see past

their dirty face, or, like, their zitty face if they're teenagers,

or their attitude, or their snark, or their complaining

mouth. If I look past all that and I look at them and

I remember who they really are at their core,

I am so much more calm and loving,

and I don't have to panic when they misbehave. And I don't have to make

it mean anything. I can just be truly present and take a look at them

and be like, hey, you. I see you. I'm glad you're

here. That's what Eyeballs is all about.

Okay, practice it this week. Let me know how it goes, and I will talk

to you next time.